The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-03-24

They sent u kindly message TO you; somehow, |
by accident, you did not get it. The Hfeboat
of the Gospel swept through the surf and
everybody seemed to get in but you. Every
thing seemed to escape you. One touch OF
personal sympathy would have pushed you
into the kingdom of God. When on COM
munion day your friends went in, and your
Sons and daughters went into the church, you
buried your face in your handkerchief and
sobbed: why am / left out? Everybody
seems TO get saved but me. No man cares for
my soul"
Heurken to revelation have to make. 1t
is startling statement. 1t will SO surprise
you that L must prove it as l go on. Instead
of this total indifference all about you in re-
gard to your SOUL have to tell you that
heaven, earth and hell are after your inmor-
tai spirit-earth to cheat it, hell to destroy it,
heaven to redeem it. Although you may be
n stranger to the Christians in this house, |
their faces would glow and their hearts would |
bound if they saw you make one step heaven
ward So intricate and far reaching is this
web of sympathy that | could by enc word
rouse a great many prayers in your behalf.
No one cares for your soull Why, one signal |
of distress on your part would thrill this audi |
ence with holy excitement If boat in any |
harbor should get in distress, from the men |
of war, and from the sloops, and from the |
steamers the flying paddles would pull to the
rescue. And if now you would lift one signal !
of distress all these voyagers of eternity |
would bear down toward you and bring you
relief. But mol you are like ship on fire |
at sea. They keep the matches down,
and the captain is frenzied, and he |
gives orders that no one hail the passing |
ships He says: II shall either land this
vessel in Hamburg OH the bottom of the
ocean, and don't care which" Yonder is
ship of the White Star line passing. Yonder
one of the National line Yonder one
of the Cunard line. Yonder one of the
Inman line But they know not there is any
calamity happening on that one vessel. Obi
if the captain would only put his trumpet to
his lip, and cry out: "Lower your boats!
Bear down this way! We are burning up!
Firel Firel" No No. No signal is given.
If that vessel perishes, having hailed no one,
whose fault will it be2 win it be the fault of
the ship that hid its calamity, or will it be
the fault of the vessels that, passing on the
Ugh seas, would have been glad to furnish re-
lief if it had been only askede In other words,
my brother, if you miss heaven it viii be
your own fault.
No one care for your soul! Why, in all the
ages there have been men whose entire bust
ness was soul saving. In this work MunSon
went down under the knives of the cannibals
whom he had come to save, and Robert Nc
Cheyne preached himself to death by 80 years
of age, and John Bunyan was thrown into a
dungeon i'll Bedfordshire, and Jehudi Ash
man endured all the malarias of the African
Jungle; and there are hundreds and thousands
of Christian men and women now who are
praying, toiling, preaching, living, dying, to
save souls.
No one care for your soul Have you
heard how Christ feels about it? / know it
was only five or six miles from Bethlehem to
Calvary, the birthplace and the deathplace of
Christ; but who can tell how many miles it
was from the throne to the manger? How
many miles down, how many miles back
again? The place of his departure was the
focus of all splendor and pomp; all the
thrones facing his throne; his name the
chorus in every song and the inscrip-
.tion on every banner; his landing place
cattle pen, malodorous with unwashed brutes,
/ and dogs growing in and out of the stable.
! Born of a weary mother who had journeyed
! eighty miles in severe unhealth that she
| might find the right place for the Lords ma
I tivity-born not as other princes, under the
/ flash of chandelier, but under lantern
swung by rope to the roof of the barn. In
! that place Christ started to save you. Your
name, your face, your time, your eternity,
in Christ's mind. Sometimes travelling on
mules back to escape old Herods massacre,
sometimes attempting nervous sleep on the
chilly hillside sometimes earning his break
fast by the carpentry of plow. In Quaran-
tania the stones of the field, by their shape
and color, looking like the loaves of bread,
tantalizing his hunger. Yet all the time
keeping on after you. With drenched coat
fliy,rr tba ,-f at Ia1
by a bloodthirsty mob. Denounced as q
drunkard. Mourning over doomed city,
while others shouted at the sight of the SHIN
mering towers All the time coming on and
coming on to save you. Indicted as being a
traitor against government, perjured wit
nesSes swearing their souls away to insure
his butchery Flogged, spit on, slapped in
the face and then hoisted on rough lumber,
in the sight of earth, and heaven, and hell to
purchase your eternal emancipation From
the first infant step to the last step of man.
hood on the sharp spike of Calvary journey
for you. Oh, how he cared for your soul
By dolorous arithmetic add up the stable, the
wintry tempest the midnight 6ampness, the
abstinence of forty days from food, the
brutal Sanhedrim, the heights of Golgotha,
across which all the hatreds of earth and all
the furies of hell charged with their bayonets,
for your soul.
A young man might as well go off from
home and give his father and mother no in
timation as to where he has gone, and, cross
ing the SEAS sitting down in some foreign
country, cold, sick and hungry and lonely,
saying: My father and mother don't care
anything about me-" Do not care anything
about himl Why, that fathers hair has
turned gray since his son went off. He has
written to all the consuls in the foreign ports,
asking about that son. Does not the mother
care anything about him? He has broken her
heart. She has never smiled since he went
away. All day long, and almost all night,
she keeps asking: "Where is he? Where can
he beg He is the first thought in her prayer
and the last thought in her prayer, the first
thought in the morning and the last at night
She says: "Oh, God, bring back my boyl
must see him again before 1 die. Where is
he? l must see him again before die" Oh,
do not his father and mother care for him?
You go away from your Heavenly Father,
, and you think he does not care for
you because you will not even read the letters
by which he invites you to come back, while
all heaven is waiting, and waiting, and
, waiting for you to return. A young man
said to his father: 81 am going off; l viii
, write to you at the end of seven years and
tell you where / am." Many years have
passed along since that son went away, and
| for years the father has been going to the
depot in the village, on the arrival of every
! train, and when he hears the whistle in the
distance he is thrilled with excitement, and
he waits until all the passengers have come
out, and then he waits until the train has
t gone clear out of sight again, and then he
goes home, fastening back to the next train;
and he will be at every train until that son
r comes back unless the son waits until the
A father be dead. But oh, the greater patience
[ of Godl He has been waiting for you, not seven
!; years, not nine years, but for some of you,
5 twenty years, thirty years, forty years, fifty
r years waiting, calling waiting, calling
r until nothing but omnipotent patience could
J., J have endured it. Oh, my brother, do no,
a. ~